If A Diary Could Talk
by Edward Mustang
Summary: There were deserters who I haven’t heard of since and then there were men who broke, sanity lost before their time was over. Those were the lucky men. Pages from the Diary of Roy Mustang.


Dear Journal,

I was introduced as war hero Roy Mustang. I am no hero. While I had the orders to do what I did it was really my choice, wasn't it? There were deserters who I haven't heard of since and then there were men who broke, sanity lost before their time was over. Those were the lucky men.

The job was a simple one. Go in and kill everyone you see with dark skin and red eyes. It was not the war that affected me in this way, but the things I was forced to do. Then again I wasn't forced was I? Evil things and evil thoughts. Perhaps evil is not born but lurks inside each person as a monster, feeding off of each persons fear. Or could it be the joy they, the monsters, absorb? Sucking it all joy out of a person and leaving none. My monster came out when ready without warning.

Before war, most people don't know how complex taking another human life is. For each one person there is a mother and father and probably brothers and sisters and aunts, uncles, grandparents, husbands and wives. Then there are millions of people with branches like this. The list goes on and it is completely mind boggling to realize just how many corners this Earth has.

The first person I ever killed was a boy. He didn't look any older than me. Chances were he was _younger_. The kid seemed just day's over fifteen; with a gun in hand, and we both hesitated. Snapping my fingers wasn't difficult, in fact before then I never gave using my own weapon a second thought.

No, was it was the feelings that came immediately afterwards along with the smell of cooking flesh. This kid had family somewhere in the world. Probably looking for him. I remember watching the vibrant flames lick at the ceiling and then the walls and the room was glowing red. I literally forgot how to move for a minute. When I left the building my body urged me to leave. To leave the town, leave this city, leave the country. My body couldn't even follow orders_ I_ gave it.

So now I wonder what makes a man? The question is one that cannot be answered by any one person. A man can be thousands of opinions stuffed together, ideas upon ideas none matching but all going together. Maybe that doesn't make sense but it feels like it does.

Could a real man be a male who does what he is told to? A man who can take care of his business without hesitation? Or the opposite? A man who follows his gut? One who could walk away from an order? Without hesitation? I couldn't answer that even if I wanted to. I am truly neither. I am a coward.

I already knew that though, what a cowardly human I could be. Two doctors it was. Iwill never forget their faces. They were aiding the enemy along with our own men. I ask you, what is the point of helping both sides if they would just go back out to kill one another?

Perhaps that's why I'm not a good person. Far from it. That logic is what will get me into trouble.

That's when the voices started telling me things. The loudest was the It.

I once held a pistol to my face and shut my eyes. Bracing myself like I was really going to kill myself. I couldn't even pull the trigger. I thought to myself, Why cant I do it!

_Go ahead_, It said. _You just killed two people with the same gun! You were able to shoot them easily enough! Just do it you stupid bastard! What makes you think you deserve to live but these people, those doctors, don't? _The room was silent and inside of my head thousands of voices were screaming at once.

How is it that I could kill so many people, but I couldn't take the life away from the one person who doesn't deserve it? A murder? Sorry isn't anywhere near good enough.

_Yes,_ It continues, _you're a murderer. You killed them all. Destroyed families and homes and lives. But what does that matter to you? Your still alive right? Apparently you think that your worth more than an entire city of people. If you want someone to be honest with you I'll give it to you straight because I love you so much. Your worthless!_

I know.

_You are worthless. Sniveling and cowardly!_

Yes. Worthless.

_Do you think you would be in this cushy position, the Flame Alchemist, if you hadn't been so blunt? You probably would have been arrested if you refused and someone else would have been sent to do it. Doesn't it make you feel good that you made someone else's job **easier **by ending lives for them? Or maybe you'd have been executed at point. You'd have died anyway, right? Was it worth it?_

No!

They call me a war hero. I am anything but a hero and that was anything but a war.

I should have gotten a desk job.

_I think so too, _It laughed.

-Roy Mustang

* * *

_A/N: I can almost promise that all of these will not be angsty._


End file.
